Insight: Why have independence movements around the world experienced a decline in support?

Separatist movements across the worlds have all seen a dip in support in recent years

When exiled independence party leader Carles Puigdemont moved his campaign operations to the French-Spanish border ahead of last week’s regional elections, he vowed to “reunite the independence movement” in Catalonia.

“We’re not going to give Spain a second chance this time,” Puigdemont told online news outlet Politico. “We’re going to be ready.”

Yet the head of the Together for Catalonia party found things had changed since he had been forced to flee his home country after the Spanish attorney general laid charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds against him and his colleagues following an illegal referendum in 2017. Protests broke out in Barcelona after Madrid refused to accept the results of the vote.

A protestor holds a sign reading "independence" during a demonstration last year marking the sixth anniversary of a self-determination referendum organised by Catalan separatists despite being banned by the courts, in Barcelona.

Now, however, Puidgemont found, it was no longer the Spanish government which was blocking Catalonia’s route to independence, but Catalonians themselves.

The election last weekend saw the largest number of seats won by The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) under former Spanish health minister Salvador Illa. For the first time in decades, independence parties no longer control the Catalan government.

Expectations of a resurgence of support for separatism in the Basque country in northern Spain were crushed last month when a left wing coalition of Basque separatists partly linked to the political wing of now-defunct terrorist group Eta made gains in local elections, but was beaten to first place by the ruling, centrist Basque Nationalist party (PNV).

Closer to home, the Scottish National Party has suffered a similar blow, albeit for different reasons. A groundswell of support for Scottish independence in the middle of the last decade saw the pro-independence Yes campaign defeated by 55 per cent to 45 per cent. Yet now, despite new first minister John Swinney’s insistence that the party will plough ahead with a second referendum if the SNP wins the majority of seats in the upcoming UK general election, this is looking increasingly less likely. The latest polling show the party is set to lose 25 MPs, while Scottish Labour could see significant gains.

Professor Robert Liñeira, lecturer in politics at the University of Glasgow.

In Canada, too, a second referendum in 1995 which saw Quebec separatists defeated by an even narrower margin of just one per cent, was followed by a period of plummeting support for sovereignty. Now, independence party Parti Quebecois (PQ) has just three members elected to the Quebec parliament, down from a peak of 80 in 1981 – a year after the first independence vote. Instead, voters have opted for a party which advocates instead for greater devolution, falling short of calling for an independent Quebec.

While PQ has seen a resurgence in support in recent months under new leader Paul St Pierre Plamondon, who has vowed he will get into power and subsequently hold a third referendum, the proportion of voters who say they support independence itself has not changed. Younger people show little interest in separating from Canada, while the separatist movement is mainly populated by the older generation who voted to leave thirty years ago.

In Catalonia, surveys also suggest a decline in support from the younger generation.

Achieving independence is rare in the West in modern times.

However, while more than 50 active separatist movements exist around the world. While in some territories, such as South Sudan which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of fighting, the movement descended into civil war, in other places, like Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed Armenian enclave quickly taken over by Azerbaijan last year, have been forcibly quashed.

Former Communist countries, including ex-Soviet nations such as Ukraine and Moldova, have become independent in recent times, as has Kosovo. However, although it is recognised internationally by more than 100 countries, Belgrade does not recognise it as such as maintains it is still part of Serbia.

Yet no country with an established democracy has seen a successful independence movement since Malta was granted independence from the United Kingdom in 1964.

Professor Robert Liñeira, lecturer in politics at the University of Glasgow, points out that second referendums are critical for any independence movement.

“The first independence referendum and the second, even if they look like similar things, they are very different political animals,” he says. “When a nation gets a first independent referendum, that's like the ultimate recognition that you're potentially a nation: that can be seen as a celebration. Even if the independence side doesn't win it, it's going to be good for them.

"But the second referendum – and I think the SNP has been very aware of this due to the Quebec experience – you can only hold if you're absolutely convinced that you're going to win. Otherwise, that can damage your image as a competent party that can manage the day to day things, because you are always advocating for constitutional change, and only when you have constitutional change are you going to be satisfied.”

Matt Qvortrup, professor of political science at Coventry University, agrees.

"They know if they if they lose second time around, then it's definitely curtains for 100 years,” he says. “So they [pro-independence parties] really want to make sure that everything is lined up.”

However, while support is waning for separatism in some parts of the word, other independence movements – mainly those where campaigners have not yet had an opportunity to take the question to the polls – are experiencing a resurgence.

Prof Qvortrup says most independence movements are borne out of opposition to politics in the establishment parliament – ie Westminster or Madrid - causing the strength of feeling to wane if a more socially acceptable government is voted in.

Flanders, the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, has thrown around the idea of independence for a long time, on a predominantly hypothetical basis. Options considered include secession from Belgium, either turning the region into an independent state, or merging it with the Netherlands, with which it shares a similar language.

Now, the concept looks to be taking a more tangible turn. The far-right Vlaams Belang (VB) party, which wants to turn Flanders into a fully independent, breakaway state, is set to top the polls in next month’s Belgian parliamentary elections. While it is a long way off from achieving a majority government, it is likely to be the largest party in parliament with a projected 26 seats.

"There's a lot of different histories and different trajectories in all of this, but certainly in the Spanish case, it was very much it was a conservative government that really fanned the flames of independence,” says Prof Qvortrup, pointing out that Catalonians are more accepting of the current socialist government in Spain. “That’s what you have in Britain as well.

"Catalonia had devolution first and then Scotland was more or less modelled on that. Scotland was a little bit ahead of Catalonia in some ways, with the referendum [three years earlier]. And now in some ways, we're following Catalonia again in seeing a change in having a soft unionist party like the Labour Party predicted to do quite well.”

In the case of Flanders, this also rings true, although for the opposite reason. The linguistic divide there is also a political one, with right wing policies faring well in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, while French speakers tend towards more liberal, left-wing parties.

VB party leader, Tom Van Grieken, has vowed to achieve independence for Flanders “no later than five years from now, maximum.”

A similar situation is playing out in the US state of Texas, where the Texan Republican Party is running on a platform to have a referendum on independence, a movement which has become known as “Texit”. Texas, as an independent entity and which enjoyed a brief period of independence between 1836 to 1846 after breaking ties with Mexico, would be the tenth largest economy in the world.

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A recent Newsweek poll found 34 per cent of Texans were in favour of leaving the US.

"These people are right wing: they say abortion has gone too far; they believe they could deal with immigration more effectively,” says Prof Qvortrup, who has recently returned from the state. “The ones who are in favour of ‘Texit’ are those who are on the right-wing side of the US Republican Party.”

Prof Qvortrup believes independence supporters generally are divided between the “diehard” supporters and people who at the time of a referendum, want to exercise their right to be independent. In Catalonia, he thinks the less committed independence voters are now the floating voters who have switched to the socialists.

"There are the diehard supporters and then some people who just thought, ‘Well, surely we have a right to do this,’” he says. “So I would say that there is 20 per cent who probably still feel the same and they were the people who would have voted for the parties who would still want independence. [The protests] were sort of almost theatrical. So I think some people enjoyed the theatre.

"But at some stage [in the independence debate], people want to return to bread and butter issues.”